Improvement in boot and shoe shanks



7G. GOODYEAR.

Boot and Shoe Shanks.

N0. 136,99]. Patented March 18; 1873.

' Jay;

Wgznmea AM mom-Limo sum/c 00. IV. mason/M's macgss) LTNITED STATES GEORGE GOODYEAR, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

IMPROVEMENT IN BOOT AND SHOE SHANKS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 136,991, dated March 18, 1873.

To all whom it may concern.

Be it known that I, GEORGE GooDYEAR, of New York, in the county of New York and State of New York have invented a new Improvernent in Shanks for Boots and Shoes,

and I do hereby declare the following, when taken in connection with the accompanying drawing and the letters of reference marked thereon, to be a full, clear, and exact descripters Patent were granted to me bearing date September 12, 1871. In that patent the shank is formed fromv a single piece of wood, the several thicknesses produced by slitting from the forward end to near the rear end, leaving it solid at the rear; hence in the wear or bending of the foot the lifts slide one upon the otlaer from the solid end toward the forward en The object of the present invention is to lessen the length of movement of the lifts one upon another, as also to produce a more elastic shank; and it consists in a solid wood shank slit from each end toward the center, leaving the wood solid and uncut for a short distance. at the center, whereby the move ment of the plates one upon the other is from the center toward each end.

I form the shank from a single solid piece of wood into'the shape required for the filling of the shank, in substantially the manner for forming wood or other shanks, and to make this elastic I slit from each end, as at a b, to ward the center, leaving a portion, A, atthe center uncut.

There may be several of these slits, proportioned in number to the thickness of the shank, thus divided into lifts or plates immovable upon each other at the center; the bending of the shank will cause the plates to move one upon the other toward each end; this movement being little more than half as much as when the shank is solid at one'end and slit therefrom to the other end, it follows that the friction is proportionately less and the elasticity proportionately greater.

I claim as my invention- As an article of manufacture, a wood shank for boots or shoes formed from a single piece of wood slit from each end toward the center,

leaving a portion at or near the center solidand uncut, substantially in the manner described.

GEO. GOODYEAR.

Witnesses:

A. J. TrBBI'rs, J. H. SHUMWAY. 

